Advertisement

Advertisement

Trending

Stuff Office Cat’s Diary – 22/01/13

Today Office Cat paws over new tablets, Sky Go going download-friendly and man jetting into space in search of asteroids to mine

22 January 2013/13:09GMT

Looking for a tablet that offers the full version of Windows 8 rather than the scaled-down RT version? Well, a new challenger has appeared in the form of the Asus VivoTab ME400, a 10.1in slate with a dual-core Atom processor, 64GB of storage and an optional keyboard-cum-case-cum-stand (wonder where they got that idea?). The ME400 is 9.7mm thick, weighs 580g and up to 9.5 hours of battery life. Look out for it from 31st January at Carphone Warehouse and Argos, priced from £400.

Asus VivoTab ME400 rocks full-fat Windows 8

Sky Go Extra, the subscription service allowing Sky Go users to download programmes for later offline viewing, has launched today. Costing £5 a month, it lets you access stuff based off your Sky account and download it to your computer, tablet or smartphone; programmes can be stored for up to seven days, except for Sky Movies films, which can be stored for up to 30 and then accessed for 48 hours from the time you begin watching them. Sky Go Extra also lets you register up to four devices for use with Sky Go’s streaming service (current Sky Go users are limited to two). If you have the Sky Go app, Extra will be available via an upgrade.

Office Cat sometimes wonders if he’d be better off leaving this idiot-ruled planet, and a newly-formed company called Deep Space Industries could provide a way off this rock. DSI plans to send ships venturing out into space to look for resource-rich asteroids by 2015, and begin harvesting them for water and metals within a decade. The idea being that these resources can be used to fuel ships in space and make exploration of the great beyond easier.

Sky Go Extra is go

The name “MSI Enjoy 71” couldn’t sound more Chinese if it tried, but this Android Ice Cream Sandwich tablet might be more than just another substandard slate from the Far East. Tipped to cost a mere €130 (£110), it’s a 7in 1024 x 600 tablet featuring an ARM-based dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage (plus a microSD slot to expand that by up to 32GB). There’s a 2MP camera on the back and a low-res webcam on the front.